


the universe is very big (and we are but mortal)

by shella688



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Autistic Doctor (Doctor Who), Gen, Insignificance In the Face of an Uncaring Universe, POV Second Person, Stream of Consciousness, Synesthete Doctor, look that bit in hell bent at the end of the universe gave me feelings, no capital letters grammar is fake, theres a lot of existential crisis-y things going on here, this is set just after ghost monument but before they really know each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 05:37:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20286283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shella688/pseuds/shella688
Summary: you may be a three thousand year old time lord (give or take a few billion years) who's seen nebula forge new stars and who's watched planets swallowed by their suns, but sometimes, every once in a while, the universe still leaves you speachless





	the universe is very big (and we are but mortal)

**Author's Note:**

> The style this thing was written in was inspired by the [nd!doctor](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1322855) series by [silent_h](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silent_h/pseuds/silent_h) which I love so go check that out

you aren't immortal, remember that. seems like an odd thing to forget but you're almost three thousand years old, give or take four and a half billion years, so it comes up more often than you'd think. you've had fourteen faces and thirteen regenerations (maybe fifteen, depends who's counting) but sometimes -

sometimes you realise how little it all means.

  


* * * *

  


you said you'd take them home and you will. just as soon as you can make the tardis work again.

it's all new and different and not necessarily bad (you love the soft yellow of the tardis and the way your coat flares when you spin) but it's still all too new all too suddenly.

"here we are - sheffield!" you say (that's a good word - sheffield - you think, a pale yellow. you're quite a yellow person this regeneration, yellow tardis yellow voice. makes a change from last time with your dark velvet voice. not that you don't like velvet you've worn it at least twice but it's hard to be bubbly with a velvet voice).

someone who might be ryan is talking. the tardis _ding_s in your mind to say that's right well done, in a tone close to fondly exasperated. this is good ryan's nice, you like his deep purple-blue voice that gets darker when he's worried. it's quite dark now and - oh no you've missed what he said and he's looking at you waiting for an answer. he sighs and you make a mental note to listen this time.

"i think you're a bit off," he repeats.

the tardis is laughing at you but joke's on her - actually no it's not. she can drive herself better than you ever could (the manual still keeps showing up) and if anything she stole you all those years back.

"you alright doc?" asks graham (he's got a yellow voice too, faded like an old painting. not sure about doc though, you like doctor, how it starts dark green then becomes bluer, colours of life you once found yourself thinking.)

you look at him, all three of them, and realise you've been talking aloud. it's the new mouth - still not got the hang of it yet.

they all look politely confused and oh dear you're still talking.

well if you're not in sheffield you must be somewhere so now's as good a moment as any to find out where. so you push past ryan-yaz-graham (it's funny how bad this face is with other people's faces or at least the tardis thinks so) and open the doors.

then you stop.

and the other three, crowding round to look, stop too.

to the left (not like directions mean anything out here though, might as well be above you) is darkness. a blank, starless, dark that conveys such an utter _nothingness_ it's hard to understand how anything existed at all.

you know what happened here - a black hole, supermassive, tearing apart stars one by one until the last flame flickered and died. all those planets and moons and smaller, gone too, before they could even develop life.

and you feel an incredible sadness for things that never even lived.

(but it was beautiful too, a beautiful not-death that you couldn't have stopped anyway, and maybe you're understanding that a little bit more now)

so you look up (but for all you know you could be looking down) and see the planet. it's just a planet, seen loads of them, says the logical part of your brain, but you were never good at listening not least to yourself.

it's a dark planet, a wandering planet, lit by no sun and bound to no orbit. it's huge (or maybe you're close) - filling almost half the sky. there's no other way to describe it: it _looms_.

there's no life on that thing, of course, much too dark much too cold. you're feeling something and notice with a start that it's loneliness. not a personal loneliness - after all there are four of you staring in awe at the icy world above - but a great cosmic loneliness. it's the realisation that you are but four lone specks of life in the great darkness. it's the knowledge that maybe this planet will find a sun, or maybe it'll be consumed by the black hole, or maybe it'll just wend its lonely way across the large, uncaring universe.

and it's the understanding that you couldn't alter this one bit.

and it's sad, this immense drama playing out over a stage that spans light years, that you can have no part in.

but looking out over this dark expanse, it's something else too:

it's beautiful.


End file.
